Day 2: The "Home Command Center"

I've always kept our calendar info and other family tools in or around my desk, and in our UWS apartment that seemed to work out well.  In this apartment, however, it's just an awkward place for it.  Therefore a few frequently used items, like the calendar, have migrated toward the kitchen area, which is where I spend the vast majority of my day.  As poorly designed as our last apartment was, it did have a good sized kitchen that I never knew I'd miss so much.

Anyway, after reading a post about putting together "Command Centers," I decided I needed to once again pull my more frequently used resources together in a central location.  I chose an area in the kitchen, utilizing the magnetic side of the fridge, some wall space, and a smidgen of precious counter space.

So this is the area I'm talking about, before I started working today.  As you can see, I've already got a basket filled with the most random things and a bunch of chargers stuck in the outlets because it's just a handy area to stick stuff.  So today's organizational project was just about making it more of a formal thing, and prettying it up a bit.

Reagan quite literally hung out with me while I was doing it :)

The first thing I did was get rid of all the crap that was in that basket.  It was just a collection of things that needed to be put back in some other area of the apartment, but was stuck there for lack of time.  So I spent several minutes running around putting things back in their rightful homes.  That in itself was a huge de-cluttering accomplishment.

Next, cleared off all the letter magnets and put them in a pencil cup.  I picked out an assortment of pens and pencils and put them in another cup, and highlighters and sharpies into a third cup.  I put my dry erase markers in an old soup can I repurposed.  The letter magnets I moved to the space on top of the fridge under the cabinet - it fits just perfectly there.  There were a few other disney character magnets that were flimsy and weak that I pitched.  The kids haven't noticed them in aged and they don't hold anything up, plus we'd already lost most of them anyway.  There are still 3-4 strong magnets, so I just straightened them.

I put up a little magnetic wall pocket I bought yesterday to hold mail and notes and that sort of thing.  Yay!  

I also wanted a white board for notes and stuff, but didn't want to buy one, so I stole one of the kids' dry erase boards and superglued a couple of Matt's old Plomin for City Council fridge magnets to the back.  Works like a charm!  (Sorry, honey...It's been like 9 years. It's time.)

Besides that white board, I have another one that has the days of the week - I use that for planning the meals for the week.  I also have some other ones that are bigger that I can move each day around...I may throw those on the front of the fridge later, but we'll see.  This is a work in progress after all.

Next, I pulled some items that normally live in my desk and put them in the pretty flowery basket, to include my Home Management Guide, that green folder that serves as my Mobile Command Center, a three hole punch - for new pages in the HMG and for recipes I print out and keep in a binder elsewhere in the kitchen - post it notes, and a couple other office-type things.

I have a nifty calendar that has a dry erase board on it that I hung right outside the kitchen door.  On the other side of the wall I put another hook up for my diaper bag.  I'm really excited about the diaper bag hook in particular because it puts every single thing I need to leave the house within an arm's reach of each other, so I can just grab it and go.

And there you have it!  I know this space will continue to evolve, but I'm super-stoked that I finally got a 'system' for this purpose in place.